Posts: 8

Topic: Thoughts on Zurk's Firmware II: Electric Boogaloo

After I saw richteel's post about the Zurk's firmware tutorials, I have wanted to try it again. After getting the opportunity to customize it to the way I see fit, I have decided that it's better for a lot of tasks than my firmware (Really Christian's, with a few widgets I downloaded). First, I downloaded the (rather large) zip file and extracted it to a flash drive. I plugged it in and after Zurk's TalkingChumby script said that it was safe to unplug the flash drive and reboot, I did. I then set the Chumby up and went to its IP in my web browser. Now, last time I said that I had connection problems with it, but I have a Netgear plug that extends the WiFi so devices that don't support WPA can connect to the Internet. I simply connect to this whenever I want to change something, before changing it back after the changes have been made. Now, Zurk has made a web-based file manager for his firmware, but it's slow and you can't batch upload files, so I opted to use WinSCP instead. I put the widgets I wanted to have into a folder at /mnt/storage and added them one-by-one through the Widget Editor. This was a pain to use, but eventually I got all the clocks I wanted onto the device. I also made a Morning channel, consisting of a simple clock and AccuWeather with fast rotation to wake up with (For anyone that wants to know, the Chumby wakes up from night mode and switches to said channel five minutes before I wake up). Meanwhile, my main channel is just a bunch of clocks I like on 1-minute rotation. Overall, I think that armed with chumbydev.blogspot.com and a few free tools (and patience), this firmware is well worth using, but I wouldn't use it if you have no technical knowledge whatsoever.

Re: Thoughts on Zurk's Firmware II: Electric Boogaloo

Thanks for the update Nathanm. I have a couple of concerns that maybe you can address:

1) I felt more comfortable when zurkware ran off a USB stick, rather than the Chumby's internal SD card. You could just unplug the USB stick and the Chumby would restore to its original self. I've read instructions on how to restore the Chumby, but they seem a little chancey. Have you read this stuff, or heard of anyone that did a restore from recent zurkware? I'm a little concerned about the SD card in another respect, too. I've heard that writing and rewriting to an SD card too much can corrupt it. I've also read in the forums about folks with Chumby SD cards gone bad, even with no alteration. I guess these cards are pretty "vintage" now. I feel comfortable installing software, but I wouldn't want to have to replace the microSD. Any thoughts on this, or just my paranoia of recent zurkware?

(I just found a full copy of raw zurkware v 15 and thought about messing with that again. Ehertz informed me in a post that new zurkware has gotten away from the xml "profile" system we've always had.)

2) There have been a few posts recently about new zurkware literally losing time, ie clocks showing the wrong time after a few days. This seems like the kind of symptom that could be the tip of an iceberg. Have you come across anything about that?

Re: Thoughts on Zurk's Firmware II: Electric Boogaloo

Hi bobsz. I can confirm that it is possible to restore the original Chumby firmware after loading zurkware. The Chumby in my bedroom that serves as my alarm clock has been through that update and restore two or three times.

As for how often the SD card can be safely rewritten, I have no idea. I have made lots of updates over the years (in the hundreds, I suspect, because I am frequently updating my list of radio stations), and have not run into corruption yet.

Re: Thoughts on Zurk's Firmware II: Electric Boogaloo

I have a bby unit that only runs zurks. It would not boot from the internal sd card, and I have no way to reload the firmware. It gets hung with a please wait, when I try to get into special menu mode.

The only options I had were to boot a zurks stick, which I did, and it worksThrow it outBoot a restore usb stick, to reload firmware. I asked, but this doesn't seem to exist.

Re: Thoughts on Zurk's Firmware II: Electric Boogaloo

Dear natham thank you for your post and you guide on how to setup zurks firmware. I finally made new channels with the gadgets that I want. I need some more help from anyone can provide( I own one insignia8): 1) I still did not manage to setup weather. Under crumby ip the only weather apps are the one that I have to change parameters and refresh. As I live in Cyprus, phrenaros, what information should I copy and where; 2) can I change default channel? After night mode off it doesn't go to last channel but in default- offline chummy. How can I change that? 3) I downloaded other widgets in folders. Can I install some of these and how?

Re: Thoughts on Zurk's Firmware II: Electric Boogaloo

thanks for the reply, already searched and tried above links, but with no success...all i want for now is to configure weather and make one channel default. So when i try to change parameters in rapidfire: <parameter value="both" name="C"/><parameter value="IBCPITTM3" name="zmw:00000.23.17609"/